What if you had the ability to bring a loved one back? Would you shove them into a rotting corpse? Or try for something…sturdier?
‘Fuck! Why isn't this compiling?!' I couldn’t help but growl in frustration as I brought up the error log and scanned through it. Lines of code sped by while I tried to find the errors that were causing my AIC to constantly fall apart.
Despite the fact that Anomalous Computer Science was half of my double major, I’ve always stumbled with the programming aspects of the degree. Certainly, I could call up something like a nature spirit or intellect spirit and slap it into hardware, but when trying to work with a soul? This was fairly uncharted ground for someone who wasn’t an expert; and even for the Jailers, it was experimental at best. It was the Necromancy part of my major that was really my forte. Still, a light sigh slipped from my lips as I just leaned back in my chair and let out a heavy groan. 'Guess I'm gonna have to bother Mikel again… I should doublecheck the ritual first, though.'
Next to my computer, I had set up a small, three foot silver circle that served as the base for the thaumaturgical portion of my bachelor's thesis. Inscribed in the wood around the circle were the sigils I had designed to channel the spirit I was searching for. Within the circle sat a bundle of usually black-looking hair that blazed copper in the sunlight that shone through the open window. I had secured the hair with a CAT5 cable, hoping that would help in transforming a simple soul summoning into a greater ritual to convert the soul into a digital form. Within the circle, I had inscribed a pentagram with each point holding a string of five binary characters that corresponded with an English letter; S-A-L-E-M.
Outside the binary were four points corresponding to north, east, south, and west, and the elements tied to them. At the northern point sat a desk fan. The southern point held a mini rock tumbler. To the east was a hotplate. At the west was a desktop waterfall. A technomancer's rendering of the four elements.
But I was still unsure about the entire process and had to keep fiddling with it.
Sure, a tech mage can create a servitor and imbue it in an electronic device, but a soul was a completely different story. They're far more complex entities that would need more storage, far more processing power, and essentially an AIC shell to merge with. Not to mention that I had initially been majoring solely in Necromancy before I moved to a double major by adding Anomalous C.S. a year-and-a-half ago; so technomancy still tended to cause me some problems.
Everything seemed like it was in order, but I was worried to just thrust forward into this unknown territory without double, triple, and even quadruple checking it. With a sigh, I rose from my desk, grabbed my jacket, and headed out to find Mikel so I could bring him back here to check my code. Maybe he could find something I couldn’t.
Before closing the door, I looked back to the desk and the ritual circle, then softly spoke to no one. 'Don't worry, mate. I'll get this to work and bring you back to me.'
‘Ciaran, honestly, why do you bother with this? You're a great medium, but working with spirits is only part of what you’re trying to do. I mean, fuck, you can barely code in Gorgon!’ Mikel was a 6’3’’, olive skinned man, with hair black as midnight, a bespoke goatee, and hazel eyes that always sparked with curiosity. He was built like a runner, giving him a rather toned ass despite the fact that I can’t remember him ever running. That cute butt was currently occupying my deskchair as he was scrolling through my code far faster than I could dream of. His eyes flicked back-and-forth over everything, searching for any errors that weren’t immediately obvious.
‘Look, I'll admit you've got down the thaumaturgy of tech magick, but…’ Mikel grumbled as he scrolled through the code that was attempting to merge a soul with an anomalous AI construct. 'Seriously, you'd be way better off just slapping the soul into a damn corpse.'
I just sighed lightly and rolled my eyes as I flopped onto my bed. My head turned to the side and I just stared at the summoning circle I had set up on my desk, then just softly spoke, 'Look, I'm trying to do something… different. Corpses collapse. And the more times you bring back the soul, the harder it becomes. And it becomes increasingly painful for them. So I think I can put this soul into something…sturdier.'
Mikel turned away from the glowing screen and just laughed softly as he leaned back in his chair to regard me. ‘Hah! What, are you saying you found, like, an Anderson tech body for the soul?'
I suddenly became very quiet, and that was all the sign that Mikel needed as he stared at me in shock. ‘You… You didn't.'
The nervous look on my face confirmed his fears and he just leaned back into the chair as he let out a long groan of exasperation. ‘You know how much shit you can get for even having something like that?! Do you know how much shit I could get in for helping you with something like this?!’
I knew that this kind of response was heading my way when he eventually figured it out, but I just tried to brush aside the concerns of my possible expulsion and bringing down the ire of the Bookburners. 'I know, but… if I can pull this off, they'll forget all about me using forbidden tech!'
Mikel just groaned deeply as his hand fell away from his eyes and he shot an angry look at me. 'If this blows back onto me, I swear I will code a daemon to hunt down any device you use and fry them.'
I meekly reached for my Deerie rugby team hat, pulled it on, and tried to hide my eyes. ‘Look, just say that you helped me with theory. I’ll back it up that you had no idea that I was going to actually try to put it all into practice. I’m the one who will be in a crockpot of hot shit.'
He just stared at me in heavy exasperation before groaning heavily. 'There's really no changing your mind on this, is there…? '
A heavy weight fell onto my shoulders as I peeked out from under the baseball cap and looked up at Mikel with tired eyes. ‘This is the whole reason I moved into a double major, Mikel. I… I need this, okay?'
A deep sigh met my plea as he reached over and put a warm, caring hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘I know, mate. I'm not pulling out, or anything, just worried. Besides, it's not like I could complete my thesis without your help.'
A small smile spread over my lips as I thought about Mikel’s abilities at summoning and how I had to hold his hand through the whole process. 'Yeah, but slapping a knowledge spirit into an Al construct is quite a bit less difficult than an actual soul. And all I did was show you how to attract and bind the spirit.'
With a light laugh, he jumped to his feet, retrieved both our coats, and tossed mine at me so that it would drape over my head. ‘See! I'm shit at thaumaturgy, and your coding is horrible! Together we might just manage to graduate with decent GPAs! Now, we should get going. Simon’s been blowing me up and begging me to bring you along to The Deep Well in Little Soho.'
Mikel and I sat in a small booth at the favorite watering hole of Three Portland’s college kid’s, The Deep Well, with our friend Simon. He was a smaller, mousier man than Mikel or I. Thick, round glasses framed his baby face while he held a waifish body. There was often a bit of nervousness to him, but if you broached a topic Simon knew anything about, he would suddenly become an excited flurry of information ready to spin you into a tizzy.
But at the moment, Simon was once again driving himself up a wall over his own attempts to summon a spirit to work with his hardware. Meaning I had to sit there, hunched over the table, studying his notes and designs for a circle that would fulfill his needs. Finally, I looked up with a curious raise of my eyebrow and questioned him. 'So this is the circle you're planning to use to channel a lightning elemental through your thaumocomputer…?’
Simon was quite good at designing and building thaumo-tech, but he’s always been a bit…dense when it came to dealing with spirits to power such things. So he offered a slightly confused look as he canted his head to the side. 'Yeah, what’s wrong with it?'
I just offered Simon a patient smile as I drew my finger over the circle and sigils he had written out. 'This will summon a GREATER lightning elemental. You'd fry your hardware, and everything between it and the nearest thaumic transformer. Here, gimme a minute.'
With a slightly bemused smile, I snatched up my pen, pulled a napkin up in front of me, and began to quickly sketch out a summoning circle of my own design.
Simon’s eyes flitted between Mikel and myself with confusion painted across his face. 'Wait, you’re just going to free hand it? Don't you need, like, books and too-'
'Shhh…' Mikel held up a hand to quiet Simon as he leaned back against the circular booth and put his arms out to the side to rest them on the backs. 'Just let him work.'
Simon complied, but leaned in closer to watch as I hummed softly and took time to sketch out a detailed circle with sigils inscribed within it and others circumscribed around it.
While Simon was majoring in Anomalous Engineering and Mikel in Anomalous Computer Science, their specialties were grounded in the mundane aspects of their disciplines. Certainly, they were capable technomancers, but I had started in Druidry at a young age before eventually moving into Necromancy. Summoning and speaking with spirits was generally second nature to me after all this time.
With a large grin, I straightened up and cracked my neck a little before pushing the napkin into the center of the table. ‘Aaand there we go. This’ll summon a lesser lightning elemental that you might be able to work with.’
Simon and Mikel leaned over to examine the napkin, but quickly backed up as I held a hand out over it and started chanting. Mikel’s eyes went wide and shot a glance over at Mitch, the bartender and owner of The Deep Well, before quickly whispering, ‘Cirry, you know what Mitch said about summoning inside the ba-’
Despite the many warnings, and times I had broken the rule, I was also thrilled to get to show off one of my greatest skills. So I just ignored the rules once more, and Mikel’s objections, as I threw together a quick chant and began the ritual.
‘I call the spirits of the storm
Bless me with a live wire
One of diminutive form
And who will never tire.'
A grin spread over my lips as the circle began to crackle with small bolts of electricity that sent static through the air around us, which caused a bit of our hair to stand on end.
A moment later, a small, half-foot tall lightning elemental was doing push-ups in the middle of the table. Simon simply stared at her for a long moment before looking up at me with confusion painted over his face. ‘What? How did you do that without any kind of preparation?!’
I chuckled softly as I leaned back against the booth and smugly put my hands behind my head. ‘Hey, man, you can build things I can never dream of, and I can work summonings just as expertly. We all have our own specialities, ya know?’
Mikel just nodded and raised up his glass into salute. ‘I’m right there with you, Simon. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been green with jealousy over Cirry’s way with spirits.’
With that, Simon let out a soft sigh and shook his head. ‘Yeah, but I still wish that I could work thaumaturgy like that…’ He quickly recovered as he watched the small lightning elemental jump up and literally start flexing as a means of trying to impress us. ‘But, whatever. Mikel, want to join me in stroking Cirry’s ego with a toast?’
A bright laugh came from Mikel as he enthusiastically clinked glasses with Simon. It brought a bright blush to my cheeks as I sheepishly looked down at the table and mumbled, ‘I’m not that amazing…’
It was then that Mitch seemed to have finally noticed what was going on at our table and suddenly bellowed loud enough to shake our glasses. 'CIARAN! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT CALLING SPIRITS INTO MY BAR?!’
A deep panic took over me as I realized that I had, once again, ignored one of Mitch’s biggest rules made just for me. To the point that it was actually written on the blackboard behind the bar. ‘Shit! Uhh…' My mind stumbled for a few moments, but I quickly composed a dismissal and coughed it out.
'Little one full of pep.
Your task is done,
Blast out another rep.
We all had fun.'
The small elemental did ten more push-ups, one-handed to show off a little, then disappeared with a light rumble of thunder. 'Sorry, Mitch! I'll barback for you tonight to make up for it, alright?'
The lack of a response let me know the arrangement was amenable to Mitch and I let out a long, soft sigh of relief. Which caused a soft round of chuckling to curl from Mikel’s throat, while Simon still looked shocked as I wiped away the remains of the burnt-up napkin. 'Ciaran… How did you keep that thing under control without a full binding circle?'
I just smiled softly as I leaned back, picked up my drink, and took a long sip before responding. 'Well, I didn't try to force her, first of all. I asked her to show up, and she did. Also, her name is “Sizarack”. You should remember it if you want to be working with her.'
Simon’s brow was still knit in confusion as I set to work re-creating the sigil on a fresh page of Simon’s notes so that he could construct one for himself later. ‘“Her"? It's just electricity with some form of consciousness. It's basically a servitor formed fro- '
I set down the pen and shot a frustrated look over to Simon before taking a deep breath and sighing softly. 'And we are just meat with some form of consciousness. Yet I give you the courtesy of using your name, no?'
Simon seemed a little taken aback, but nodded and sipped at his drink as I continued. ‘And we are not dealing with simple constructs like servitors. Elementals are spirits with intelligence. How intelligent they are may vary, just like us, but they all certainly have distinct personalities.'
Mikel chuckled lightly and raised his glass in salute. 'Hell, I've certainly pissed off Rory a few times and been locked out of my phone until I apologized.’
With a similar glass raise, I saluted back and grinned. 'Hey, you're the one who wanted to shove an intellect spirit into your phone. I warned you that they're incredibly close to human spirits in how nuanced the relationship can be.'
It was Simon's turn to chuckle and show some mirth as he waved us off. 'I think I’ll just stick to building equipment and leave the summonings to someone like you who understands it far better than I.'
With a playful wink, I gave a little warning to Simon. 'Well, lucky for you, Sizarack seemed pretty easy-going. She should be more than enough for your project, but please give her a rest and a battery to eat each day. Because she can, and will, destroy every electronic you own if you piss her off.'
At that, Simon sank back into his seat and hid behind his beer as he took a long sip and considered the dangers of summonings that he had never considered before.
‘Dammit!', I screamed as I slammed my hand on my desk in frustration while running through the simulation logs. The program Mikel and I developed wasn't showing any errors with the simulations. The hardware should be able to handle the process, and the summoning ritual I had developed was airtight.
So it must be the soul. Some hang-up on their part.
Thus, I found myself wandering out into the woods that surrounded Deer College. I could have done a technomancy summoning in my dorm, but being out in the woods always felt more comfortable when I wanted to converse with a spirit. After some walking, I found a clearing with a wide tree stump and bright moonlight filtering through the canopy above. A perfect spot for the magical sensibilities I grew up with.
I slipped a small knife out of my pocket, then carved a circle and familiar set of runes into the stump. They were joined with a set of objects to imbue the circle with symbols of the elements. To the north, a feather. The south held a piece of quartz. A small fire was erected to the east. Finally, a bowl of salt water was set to the west.
‘Ferryman of death, I call to you
I summon one within your care
Bring me the friend that I once knew
I beseech you answer my prayer.'
After putting out the call, I settled in to wait for the reply. It does take time for a spirit to find its way to the caller, but my target always was a little fickle. The whiskey I had brought with me certainly helped pass the time.
Finally, the shimmering form of the spirit materialized within the circle, with an annoyed look on his face.
'Ahh, There you are, Salem!'
‘… '
'I know, mate, I'm working on it. But, before we get you into the body, we need to upload your soul to the storage module.’
‘…’
'What? No! Of course I won't keep you around in my cell phone, or some other technomancy fuckery. I know the body is robotic, but you’ll still be able to feel things just like you used to. '
‘… '
'Okay, yeah, you won’t be able to eat, but the same would be true if I just stuck you in a corpse!’
‘…"
'I-I can't use your old body. It… was cremated, remember? And I can't just take another's body. So… this technomancy is our best way to get you back. And your new body will be sturdier than any corpse I could get!'
‘…’
‘Yes, you will have to spend some time in my computer’s thaumatic hard drive, and the transfer process will be… weird for you.'
‘…’
'Yes, I have tried it! And it worked! Mikel has an intellect spirit running around his phone and thaumocomputer because of this ritual. Your soul is a bit more complex than an intellect spirit, but it should work fine! We can do this, I promise. I will bring you back.'
Salem’s ghostly form just stared at me for a few long moments, then nodded his assent, turned, and demanifested.
'Alright… let's try this again now that you’re okay with the process.'
The fans of my thaumocomputer were screaming like banshees as the machine worked overtime to process the soul transfer. The sigils on my desk blazed with a deep-green light while the ritual circle worked to summon the soul.
A moment later, the soul coalesced there on my desk, concern painted across his face.
But I offered a small, patient smile and tried to pat Salem’s ghostly form, but, of course, my hand just passed through. Still, Salem seemed calmed by the action. 'Hey, it's okay, bud. The program's working fine and the transfers starting. I'll have you in your new body soon.'
Just as I said that, the soul faded from the circle, began moving through the thaumocomputer, and into the Anderson robotic body.
'Ha-ha! Yes!' I actually jumped out of my seat and danced a little in joy at the prospect of my best friend coming back.
Then the errors began popping up.
The hardware was overheating from the strain of trying to process something as complicated as turning a soul into an AI construct. In a panic, I didn't even bother with screws as I grabbed a side panel with one hand, the tower with the other, and wrenched the panel free. The metal dug into my fingers and cut deep, but I didn't care as I tossed the bloody, twisted metal casing aside. With the hardware exposed, I quickly threw together a bit of magick to directly cool the equipment.
‘My friend’s soul is in danger.
I call to you.
Your power is no stranger
Let wind blow through.'
The coursing wind exploded from my bleeding hand as the blood inadvertently empowered the spell. The force of the wind slammed the thaumocomputer and monitor into the wall as the backlash of the uncontrolled working sent me flying backwards against the opposite wall.
I just laid there for a minute, groaning softly as everything hurt. My glasses had been blown off my face, so my vision was blurry and I couldn’t read the cracked, flickering screen that was half-way embedded in the wall. As if it mattered. With a fuck up on this level, I knew everything was completely ruined. And my friend would now be scattered and fragmented in the thaumodrive.
While I lay there with my body screaming in pain, I barely cared. My thoughts were on my friend and the digital hell I just consigned Salem to. My own pain was nothing compared to the pain Salem was certainly going through as his soul was broken into pieces and split throughout the drive.
My last thread finally frayed and I simply lay there as the tears came hot and heavy. I began repeatedly slamming my head onto the carpeted floor of my dorm and screaming in anguish and frustration.
My body finally started to give out as the lights began to fade. Before I succumbed to the pain and exhaustion, I heard the sound of my R.A. nearly breaking down my door after the thaumic explosion rang through the halls, quickly followed by my screams of anger and pain. Not exactly unusual in the Mad Sci dorms, honestly.
The lights began to slowly fade away as I was dimly aware of the R.A. alternating between screaming if I was okay while also berating me for having an 'unauthorized Anderson robot’.
I awoke two days later in Deer's medical wing with an IV drip hooked up to my arm that was derived from herbs that the Veiled society could only dream of. It took a bit for my eyes to be able to focus as well as they could without my glasses, but I was aware of someone standing next to my bed. 'Ahhh, you're finally awake.'
The nurse next to me mused lightly as he looked me over and jotted down some notes. 'You Mad Sci. kids are always putting yourselves in here, ya know? I have to wonder if half of you will even survive to graduation with all the crazy experiments you get up to.' He chuckled lightly and pulled up a seat next to me, taking a minute to check my pulse and blood pressure.
'I really fucked up this time…', I softly muttered as I stared up at the ceiling while feeling the pain and regret flooding me. 'I tried to help a friend. I think I…' The words died on my lips as I refused to even speak the truth of what had happened in my dorm room. Salem was gone. There was no way I could get him back after fucking up so hard. Nothing I could do to he-
My self-pity was suddenly interrupted as I became aware of a weight slowly making its way up my torso and then settling upon my chest. And the sound of a light, soft purring finally found my ears. With wide eyes, I slowly looked down to see my feline familiar in his new Anderson Robotics Neko-Class chassis gently kneading me before settling down and curling up on top of me. The process had actually worked despite my massive fuck-up.
‘He's refused to leave your side, you know?' The nurse mused lightly as he reached up to give Salem a few light pets, and then stood to leave. 'We've taken him back to your dorm numerous times, but he always makes his way back here to lay down at your feet. Animals aren't supposed to be in the ward, but he is just a robot. So we eventually just stopped trying.'
A light chuckle slipped from my lips as I brought up a weak hand to scratch lightly behind Salem's ear and was rewarded with a series of loud, rumbling purrs. 'Hey, I'm a necromancer. Where would I be in this world without my familiar?’